After years of long distance lusting, Miss Lagsalot finally had a chat with Dylan Ryder, one of the most stunning babes in the jizz biz. Here’s what they had to say to one another in this scintillating interview. But be warned. Some photos are oh-so-not SFW!
WHACK! MAGAZINE Well, Dylan, I feel pretty confident that most of our readers at WHACK! know who you are, but in case there are a few living under a rock, can you give us a little bit of background info on who you are?
DYLAN RYDER Well, my name is Dylan Ryder. I’ve been in the adult industry for about two years, and I run my website, which is DylanRyder.com, and I have recently been signed to and exclusive hardcore contract only for Bluebird Films. So that’s kind of exciting! They probably have seen my retarded tweets on Twitter, and that’s @dylanryderxxx on Twitter. And that’s pretty much it!
W! So you recently signed to Bluebird. That was… was that earlier this year or just this month?
DR It was just this month!
W! So that’s really new! As far as you’re allowed to tell us, what are the terms of your contract? What are you doing for them and not for other people?
DR Pretty much I’m just working for them and for my website. Other than that, there’s nothing else that I’ll be doing. So those will be the only two places people will be able to find me.
W! Excellent! I really like Bluebird Films, so that’s exciting. So going back a little way, I know you’ve been in and out of the industry, and then you really committed a few years ago to it. How did you, in the first place, decide that you wanted to try the adult industry?
DR Well it’s funny because I was actually working as a substance abuse counselor, at a prison before I got into the business. And then I found out that I was going to be losing my job and was stressed out trying to find another position. And a friend of mine who used to be in the business said, “Well why don’t you do what I do on the weekends?” And she then told me what she did on the weekends: she was in porn! And I totally didn’t believe her. She was like, “No, I’m serious! You can make enough money and it’ll be cool! You can do it!” I never in a million years thought that I’d be able to take off my clothes in front of a bunch of people, much less be in an intimate compromising position for everybody to see. But yeah, it was her who gave me the push to go in that direction, and then I was like, “Hey, this is kind of fun!”
And in the industry, one thing a lot of people don’t know about is that when you’re brand new, everybody wants to shoot you because you’re a brand new girl. And during that time, the industry was so strong. When I first was in it, like everybody shot me so I was like 23, I had a fuckload of money, and it was insane! And I was still not sure that I even knew what I was doing on film. I was just getting to know my body, and just really becoming a woman so to speak. So it was a little awkward for me, and I found myself kind of questioning why I was doing it. I felt ridiculous sometimes. I was worried that that whole sort of persona would have led me down a path I didn’t want to go down. And so I decided to take a break and figure what I wanted to do with my life and where I wanted to go. I didn’t want to regret anything. So I decided to make the jump to be a correctional officer.
Yeah, so I did that for a while. And then people at work found out, long story short. It was just like in high school everyone finding out that you fucked the whole football team. And everybody made a big deal out of it, and it was kind of embarrassing. And it got really weird because I had a female supervisor, and she gave me a hard time. And it wasn’t worth it; it wasn’t worth the pay or the headache to stay in that business.
So I ended up coming back to the adult business, and I’m so glad that I did take that break and was able to let myself mature a little bit more before coming back. Because, since this is business, I handle myself like a business. I sell my brand, so to speak. And I understand that this industry has a lot to offer but you have to be able to be mature and be responsible because otherwise you’ll just be handed a ton of money and there’s a lot of different options and paths that people can take and sometimes it’s not always the best one. So yeah, that was the best decision for me.
W! And it sounds like you really know that this is what you want to do now, so that’s got to be a huge step. It sounds like you really know what you’re doing. That’s good! Since you worked as a substance abuse counselor, I guess you already knew a bit about the prison system, but how did you decide to be a corrections officer? I mean, that’s something that you don’t hear someone who does porn say very often, so it’s interesting to me!
DR laughing Well when I worked as a drug and alcohol counselor, I was working at a prison but I was part of a non-profit organization. I was paid to come in and help inmates that were trying to recover and trying to stay on the right path. And a lot of the times I found myself I going, “I’d really like to be on the in-custody side.” I wanted to really be sure that the inmates that were sentenced to do their time were doing their time proportionately. I’m a huge believer in that if you did something to hurt someone else, you should be punished. So it wasn’t like I wanted to watch them suffer, but I wanted to be on that side of law enforcement. I found it really interesting. And I just wanted to go in that direction.
The application process itself takes a long time, so during that period when I was doing porn, I actually had an application that was in processing, so it just so happened that around the time it got approved was around the time that I’d been around for about six months. And I was kind of burned out already, so it worked out good. It was just something I wanted to do.
W! That kind of makes it sound as if you have a little bit of a thrill-seeking personality. Do you think that’s true, or is it just where you’ve ended up?
DR I’d say when I was younger I was much more of a thrill-seeker, so to speak. I don’t know if I was a thrill-seeker or I just knew I could get away with shit. But I must certainly tried. … Not a lot of people know that about me, that, you know, they’re like, “How could you be in that environment? You’re just a chick.” Well, not really. Because I’ve dabbled in drugs and alcohol, and I’ve been to jail many times, and I sort of chose to be reckless and young and stupid. And I took all those experiences and decided that, “Hey, this isn’t what I want to do. I want to make the rest of my life something that I’m proud of and that my family can be proud of.” I want to do the right thing, I guess. I sort of grew out of my adventures.
W! So then your family knows what you do and they’re supportive?
DR Yeah, my mom especially is really supportive. My dad, he knows what I do but he doesn’t know exactly what I do. So it’s not that we talk about it, but I think he has an idea. But for the most part my family is super supportive. My little sisters, they have regular day jobs and then they’re also amateur MMA fighters. We’re really supportive of their athleticism and they’re really supportive of me because I’m not in trouble, I’m not in jail, I’m not doing anything illegal. I’m responsible and I take care of my family and myself, and that’s I think the most important thing. It really doesn’t matter what I’m doing as long as I’m happy doing it.
They’ve always been super supportive of us.
W! So tell me about your sisters! I heard that there was an event coming up sponsored by Bluebird…
DR Well actually what happened was, they’re amateur. They’re not pro. The only professional organization that offers for females to fight and actually hold titles is Strikeforce. And Strikeforce was bought by the UFC. Their sponsor, their biggest sponsor, which is a clothing company called FiveStar has bought into the UFC. And the UFC, because it’s professional, is not allowed to promote amateur fighters. And especially now, seeing as the UFC doesn’t allow females, they’re really going to be in the amateur arena for a long time. And so they need sponsors that are going to be able to be with them for a length of time because we don’t know if they’ll ever be able to go pro depending on what ends up happening after their Strikeforce contracts are up. I don’t know how much you know about fighting, but it’s one of those things where, yeah, it might be a private-owned organization, but it’s very discriminatory in my opinion.
So, yeah, they needed sponsors, and I’ve always been a sponsor of theirs, and then when I signed with Bluebird, I said, “Hey, do you want to be a sponsor for my sisters?” And Nick [Steele, director/producer for Bluebird] and Paul [Chaplin, head of the company] both think it’s really neat. I’m trying to get them to a bunch of events coming up and hopefully they’ll be able to make it because we’ll be in the midst of shooting that weekend, but fortunately enough I was able to have it off so we could go and get some footage. It’s a lot of fun. I think it’s really neat that Bluebird is really supportive and able to participate in this. I think it’s really neat. It’s a good crossover because the footage will be on HDnet, and my logo for DylanRyder.com and the Bluebird logo are going to be on their walk-out clothes, their fight shorts, and their banners. So hopefully a lot of people watch and will see it and they’ll go and look up the stuff or look up my site, and it’ll be cool.
[PS, what Dylan is referring to is the Tuff N Uff event April 8 at the Orleans Casino! More info here.]
W! Wow, that’s great, it’s like a family event. That’s fantastic! So, just last week I interviewed Will Ryder over at X-Play, who does all the porn parodies. Then I started talking about doing an interview with you. And I thought it was hilarious that in two weeks I’d be interviewing two people that have the same stage name. Obviously you guys aren’t really related or anything. But it got me thinking about your name. Because you’re very feminine in your stage presence, you’re very curvy and adorable and charming. But you have a kind of masculine name. How did you choose it?
DR I think it’s funny because it does sound sort of intimidating in a way. It’s not like super luxurious or really sensual sounding. But it’s funny, I was just flipping through a magazine. This goes back to before I ever was in porn. And I was flipping through a book and I told one of my friends, “If I was ever in porn, I would want my name to be…” and I opened to one page and I saw, “Dylan,” but it was spelled differently. And I said, “That’s kind of cute!” And then I went to another page and I saw a sentence that said the phrase, “Ride her.” And I thought, “Hm, ride her. Ryder!” And it just became like a joke.
So my first few scenes, I don’t even know if I had a name, because they were like, “Do you have a stage name?” And I’m like, “No…” I think I even used “Natasha” at one time. And so it was just that name, there was nothing else behind it. And then I noticed on FreeOnes that they have me down as an alias as Dylan Katz, and I don’t even know who that is or where that came from. It was probably given to me on one of those no-namer scenes when I first got started. That’s the name that I chose and it’s funny because there’s a gay guy with the same name! And so I got into porn and I started using that name and he messaged me on MySpace, back in the day, and said, “Oh I’m so glad to be sharing my name with such a pretty girl!” And I was like, “Awesome!” It was kind of fun.
W! Like, “Yeah, I totally… named myself… after you! Totally!”
DR Yeah! laughing I sure didn’t mean to, but nobody will ever get us mixed up. There’s other Dylans and there’s other Ryders, and it’s funny because there are so many creative things that you can do to come up with your name, and there are so many different names out there. And it always amuses me that the new girls always, somehow, end up with names that are so strikingly similar to girls who have always been in the industry!
W! I know!
DR It’s a little bit spelled differently but it’s essentially the same name. And it’s kind of sad because everyone has their own personality, especially girls that have been around for a couple years. They’ve established themselves, and they’ve built their fans. And when titles are released and the names are so strikingly similar, it’s almost like a slap in the face to the girls who have worked really hard to build that career with that name, and then when you have a girl who comes up and is like, “Oh yeah, I’m Sasha Grain,” it’s like, why would you even do that? You know?
I just think it’s funny that the agents go along with that.
W! I think that probably a lot of the time it happens that when a new girl starts, when they go to shoot the scene, someone says, “What do you want your name to be?” And the girl goes, “I don’t know.” I have a feeling that whoever’s really big right at that time, somebody says, “Well why don’t you choose a name like her? Because that’ll help sell the movie.” Somebody might think that this is really Jenna Haze instead of whoever else Haze.
DR Instead of “Cindy Haze.”
W! Yeah! When I get movies for review, and I get the “new faces” stuff, there’s like trends. For a few months everybody’s name is Allie, and then everybody’s name is Lexi, you know? Have you seen any up-and-coming trends in naming lately?
DR Man, I should hope not. I hope they come up with something original instead of following a trend.
W! We’ll see.
DR When I started cutting my hair short, it was totally by mistake. I went for an A-line cut that was similar to what I did have, which was shoulder-length hair. I wanted it cut all the way, symmetrically. And what I ended up with was a bowl cut! So I had this dorky short hair for a long time before I found somebody who could actually do my hair decently. And everybody was like, “Oh my god, you have short hair!” And then it became a trend that it’s ok to have short hair. And now you can be equally sexy with short hair, without being emo or any sort of nichey type of character hair. And I found it to be kind of funny because now there’s so many girls with short hair. Like, what the heck? I used to be the only one! And it sort of became “me,” and when I’ve gone out with long hair, people don’t recognize me. But when I have my short hair, they’re like, “Oh that’s Dylan Ryder!” They know. I think it’s funny!
You’re right, there are trends. And in this industry it’s really important to figure out what works for you. Not only as a performer, but as whatever you’re going to be calling yourself. You want to be able to hold onto that. I mean, you’re creating a character, a personality. And that’s how fans are going to find you. They fall in love with that character. And if you keep changing your hair color, your style, your spelling of your name and stuff, it’s almost like it’s a game and like it’s not taken seriously. You can have die-hard fans, or you can have touch-and-go fans. [Editorial note: I’m not sure if Dylan made this hilarious pun on purpose, but either way, it’s genius.] And I think a lot of times girls don’t understand when they come into this business that, if you want to make a lot of money and you want to make your fans really happy, stick with something that’s trend-proof and just let that be who you are. It’s just like, with fans, when they fall in love with you and you had pin-straight hair and then you start wearing a perm, they’re like, “What the hell?” You know, guys are creatures of habit, they get used to stuff.
So I think it’s important to maintain individuality in this industry.
W! Well, yeah. If you are making your name off a brand, you can’t… I think it’s important, too, to have your character’s personality based on something that’s true about yourself, or else it’s too easy to forget what you’re doing. Do you think that’s true?
DR Yeah, oh completely, completely! Or, you know, it looks fake! I talk all the time about girls who do girl/girl and don’t like girls! And it brings down the whole vibe of a scene. Or when I get paired with really short guys. I mean no offense, cause there’s some really great guys in the industry, but I don’t really have chemistry with short guys because I feel so huge next to them. And not that I’m fat, you know, I’m 5’9” and 135 pounds, but when you put me against somebody who’s 5’6” or 5’7” and a buck ten soaking wet, I feel like Godzilla next to them! And it’s not productive! It fucks with your mind! It’s really hard to put yourself in the moment. And I want to be able to relax all the time on set, and sometimes it’s not always there. And I hate leaving set thinking, “Man, that scene sucked!” or, “What a bad day!” Like with anything, you want to do a good job and you know that you really embrace who you are and what your character is so that when fans see you, they don’t go, “Oh, something looks off about that.” They notice all that stuff!
W! So who are some of your favorite people to work with, then?
DR That’s funny because in the past few weeks I’ve been putting together my short list for guys. And I really love Tommy Gunn. He makes every girl feel super beautiful and he’s really loving and really respectful. He’s an awesome performer. His nickname sometimes is “the Diamond-Cutter” because he can do like three scenes in one day and never have wood issues and never have a problem. And then you get all your newbie guys who are like, “Yeah, I’m a porn star!” And you go, “Honey, how many scenes have you done?” And they’re like, “Oh, like twelve…” And it’s like, “Ummm… yeah.”
laughing
Another one I really love is Danny Mountain. He’s really sweet. He’s really fun to work with. Evan Stone is hilarious. He’s a lot of fun. Chris Johnson makes me laugh, too. He’s a little blond, cute guy. Let’s see, who else did I put on my list? I put Mick Blue, even though I’ve never worked with him, because I’ve heard he’s really good. And he’s on the tall side, so I added him. I probably have a few other names, I just can’t think of them right now.
W! How about women? Which girls do you like to work with?
DR Oh, that’s a long list! My favorites… Phoenix Marie is an absolute favorite of mine, I love her. Madison Ivy, she’s such a doll! I love Jessica Jaymes, we work together a lot for my site. She’s a good friend of mine. Mariah Milano, she’s just a loud-mouth Italian who’s crazy, like me. When we get together we’re like screaming when we’re sitting right next to each other and it’s hilarious. That’s just how we talk. We’re both very boisterous.
That list is really long because I’ve come to admire a lot of the girls who are in this business, and they have this whole other side of them that I probably will never meet, nor will I ever work with just because there’s a whole lot of them that just come and go. Or there are some who work for a month and then take five months off! And to me that doesn’t make any sense, but whatever.
W! Well… I guess if you can… I don’t know, I might. Five months off sounds pretty great.
DR I mean it’s one thing to take a vacation, but, you know… If you’re just doing it for money and then you disappear, I don’t know…
W! Yeah that doesn’t sound like such a great business plan.
DR I’d rather all the hard-working girls get the work. And if that were the case and all the girls took this seriously and weren’t just doing it to do it, that would probably cut the whole industry in half because there’s so many girls. So many girls.
W! It’s true. Some of them you see once and never again, and it’s interesting too because the industry is going through so many changes right now. It’s interesting to see how many people are involved at such a strange time.
DR Yeah. It’s quite interesting. I think a lot of the time, some girls get into because they’re curious, some girls get into it because they want to make money, some girls want to get into it because they have other jobs and they want to say, “Well I’m in porn too!” and it helps leverage that side of whatever they do, and then there’s the other side of it where they love being on camera and they love what they do and they love sharing that intimate peek, kind of tongue-in-cheek, and putting it out there to encourage other couples, and to build a fan base, and to build themselves up. And those are the girls that are gonna last and survive through all the shit and all of the psychological questions that the porn industry is going through.
I personally think it’s great, because a lot of people in this business are used to doing things a certain way. And even the changes from VHS to DVD to hi-def to Blu-Ray and they’ve done all these different leaps, there’s still a huge… I don’t know how to explain it… like a lack of presence across the Web and all of the networking that people can be utilizing to generate more income, and to make themselves more accessible. And not only do we live in an age where not only do I want it now, but it’s available on three different platforms and I want to be able to have it here, here, and here. And I want to know that once I’ve downloaded it here I’ll have it at home.
There’s so much technology available, and it’s just a matter of companies sitting down and being able to learn and let go of everything they thought that they knew about marketing strategies and really building all over again. Because I know from my webmaster and the things they have planned, there are so many advances that companies can be making! And they can be making so much more money than they currently are, but it takes a lot of know-how. I’m the farthest one away from saying I know how to do it and I know how to work stuff, because I’m heavily dependent on the guys that run my site. And I’m always asking them, “Can we use this? Can we use that?” And they say, “Yeah but it’s expensive and you need X, Y, and Z.” And these companies are spending 30 to 40,000 a month on movies being made by three or four directors, and you know, take a chunk of that, go build that site, build all of those different platforms. Become like Pink Visual and like Brazzers and really put it out there, and I guarantee you not only will the lights be on, but everyone’s going to be happy and no one’s eating cat food, and we’re just evolving with the times. We have to.
W! It’s weird because, throughout its history, the porn industry has been the on that drives new technology, you know, from Betamax vs. VHS to hi-def vs. Blu-Ray, you know? And I feel like just in the past few years things have started moving so fast that the porn industry is falling behind instead of being the leader. I hope that in the next few years, a few companies or a few people really figure out how to make it work and then everybody can follow that model. Because I don’t know if it’s there yet.
DR Yeah, you have your Brazzers and your Pink Visual and those companies have been heavily internet-reliant since the beginning. I remember doing my first few scenes for the web, and I remember being like, “Oh, it’s for the internet? Psh, I’ll never see that!” And then all of a sudden I come back and everything’s online. And it’s not DVD. Now the majority of what you shoot is for the internet. And now we’re so technologically advanced that not only can we just get this whole streamed video on our phones, but there’s the technology that will allow you to be downloading at home to… whatever, it’s a box but I forget what it’s called… and to be watching it on your phone, on your iPad. And there’s all these different ways that you can be integrating these things, and truly, you’d have to have a whole staff just to do that stuff.
W! So, looking back in time, before all of this… I read in an interview you did with Lucy Vonne a while back. And you mentioned that when you were in high school, you hung out with the skater kids. And that cracked me up because I did too, and I just thought the skater boys were so hot! And I have to ask, did you wear the giant JNCO jeans?
DR laughing Yeah, we’d wear big baggy jeans and flannel shirts and I was all into Nirvana and Seattle grunge. I didn’t know where I fit in, and I went from one school to high school, and I lived in a small town, so there were like three or four elementary schools and we all went to one high school. So now there’s all these different kids and I didn’t know where to fit in. So I just went with the group that was the most non-judgmental. I was trying to figure myself out. I didn’t feel like I fit in in high school at all until like my junior year. So, yeah, I hated high school.
W! I remember loving the skater boys. I thought the way they dressed was so sexy. But now, you’re living in California where you a have like every subset of person. So what’s your favorite style on a guy now?
DR I tend now to gravitate towards guys that are more put-together. Like they have nice shoes and nice jeans, not too full of themselves or over the top, not like that. But somebody who’s approachable who looks like they could be fun to be around. Maybe if they’re telling jokes; I really like guys who are funny. Or guys that’ll take the time to explain something to me. I like it when guys can educate me on something I really know nothing about. Even if I really don’t care or if I’m never going to use the information they give me. Because a lot of people are intimidated by me. And that in itself is really hard to swallow. I’m like, “I’m not intimidating!”, Yeah, I’m loud cause I’m Italian. And I’m tall. But when you top that with, “Oh and by the way I’m in porn,” I get a lot of, “Uhhh…” Guys just don’t know how to talk to me. And I like to… not be challenging… but I like to ask a lot of questions. So if somebody were to say, I dunno, if somebody tells me something and I go, “So basically what you’re saying is, blah blah blah…” And they go, “Uuuhhhhh…” I’m not doing it to be challenging, I just want to play both sides. I want to see what more you have to say about it. It’s not that I’m disagreeing with you or trying to prove you wrong, but more just for a little healthy debate. And a lot of guys don’t like that. They’re all, “Oh, she’s threatening me! She’s challenging me!”
Like if you’re going to tell me, “Oh did you know that by law you don’t have to pay taxes?” I’d be like, “Really? What are you talking about?” And we would sort of talk about it, and that would be it. But a lot of guys, if you say, “Oh, I thought it was like this. That’s weird.” A lot of guys are like, “Oh, I don’t want to say anything piss her off.” And I’m like, “Ugh!” Guys tend to overanalyze stuff too much.
W! Speaking of intimidating things, I read on your blog that you have a Fleshlight toy coming out!
DR I do! We just got back from Texas a couple weeks ago. That’s where they’re located at, the Fleshlight company. You go there, you get your pussy, your ass, and your mouth molded, and then they actually show you when you’re done what it will look like. And that gets sent off and they come up with the actual mold, and then they use that to actually build all of the Fleshlights!
So we go to take a tour of the facility and see how they’re made and put together and packaged. It was actually a lot of fun!
W! What was your experience of actually having them mold all of your body parts like? How do they do that?
DR They actually bring in a molder that works with this particular kind of mold. And the actual mold is made from a kind of algae, so it’s organic and it doesn’t hurt you. It’s non-toxic. And when they put it on it’s like a really heavy, cold cream. It looks like a mask for your face. It’s kind of weird. And it starts to set, and when they pull it away, it’s like a silicone/rubberish consistency, but it retains the shape of whatever it molded and it hardens.
The worst one for me was my mouth, because parts of it start to go in your mouth and you can’t purse your lips or make a face because they want your mouth to be the way your mouth is. And the coolest one was my pussy only because it’s so cold. It kind of felt good down there!
W! How long did you have to sit or hold still?
DR For about ten, fifteen minutes. And then they take it off from there, and then all the little dried bits just chip right off. I thought it was kind of cool, actually.
W! Yeah, that sounds kind of fun! So what else do you have coming up? Any big projects we can direct people toward?
DR Yeah! Like always, I’m going to be putting cool stuff on my website, but a lot of it will be when we start filming next month. When we start filming I’m gonna put a lot of behind the scenes stuff on my site, so they can find that at DylanRyder.com. And then I am Katwoman [in the next Batfxxx movie]! So we’ll be filming that in May, and then we also have Baberunners coming out, which actually is going to be really cool because it’s a take on Bladerunner, so that’ll be really neat. And we’re doing a big witch movie called Salem, so that’s another one that’s gonna be really cool. I got to see parts of the script, and that’s gonna be really cool. Really cool.
W! That’s exciting!
DR So, yeah, there’s a lot of stuff. Paul Chaplin, he’s responsible for coming up with all these crazy concepts that we shoot, he’s got an imagination that just won’t stop. A lot of what he likes to do is over-the-top and expensive and it’s just really fun to be a part of their productions. I’m still getting used to it.
W! I bet! I feel like it must be so much fun to go to work every day.
DR laughing It is! It is! And on the days when I’m not working I’m still down there doing stuff because I really love everybody at the company. Everybody behind the scenes and in post-production and the warehouse manager… I mean, everybody is awesome. They’re a lot of fun.
W! That’s great. Well… I like everyone at WHACK! Magazine, too, so I guess we’re about even. [Editorial note: that’s a lie. I hate those bastards.]
DR Yeah, it makes it fun!
W! Awesome! Well, Dylan, this has been a lot of fun but I’ve got to wrap it up. You’re really fun to talk to!
DR Aww, thank you! I’m a talker.
W! That works beautifully for me! Thank you!
DR Thank you!
—Interview conducted by the depraved but delightful Miss Lagsalot.